


We'll Find a Line to Follow (It'll Show Real Soon)

by trippydooda



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Cid is suffering, Mostly Cid being sad, Other, Very brief mention of OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7992889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trippydooda/pseuds/trippydooda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't turn back. Not for five years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Find a Line to Follow (It'll Show Real Soon)

_"This is for the greater good," they told him. "One day, people will look back and thank you for this. You'll be a hero."_

The words reverate endlessly behind his skull. The sky is too dark, the noises are too loud. He looks out, seeing bloodshed surrounded by mass destruction. He thinks, _I did this_. He's not entirely sure what he's done, and so he wills himself to step closer. Wind is billowing, making the embers from still burning fires dancing across the battlefield. His eyes keep searching it, moving wildly back and forth, like there's something down there he's missing. Something that will explain all the suffering. He decides to close his eyes and tries not to breathe in--it smells like burned flesh.

He's almost done telling himself it's going to end when something lights up the sky. His eyes flash open, and he lays his eyes upon a sun. He thinks that maybe it's too literal of a comparison, but it certainly burns with the same intensity. The same want for destruction. He lets himself look, lets himself study the sun. As the clouds part, his breath hitches. Blood turns cold. The sun begins to crack open, revealing the most blinding light he's ever seen. His lips are pressed together as he watches, unable to look away. It's only when the loud screeching sound comes from within. It is now he puts the pieces together. It's now he lets himself understand. 

He did this.

Before he can witness any of it, before he can let himself believe what he's done, he runs. He falls over his feet, falls down hard onto the stone beneath him, but he runs. Maybe there are tears drying as they fall. Maybe he hears, feels, explosions behind him. It doesn't matter. He still runs, he still doesn't turn back. Not for another five years.

\---

He's searching, searching for anything that makes sense. His brow sweats and his breaths are coming too quickly for him to sustain. Every breath is hard and no breath leaves him closer to knowing. To knowing what it is he's doing here. Why the sun is beating him down to his knees and why he can't get up. He can't remember. There is nothing to remember. He touches his face and feels a face, but he has no name. He has nothing. He's slipping into unconsciousness when a figure approaches him and lends a hand.

He wakes up in a panic, remembering only fire, and he's shouting a name. He can't think of it now, thinks it was right on his tongue, but now he sits in an empty room clutching sheets he knows aren't his. A figure walks into the room and he dares to look. His is an older man, a priest he thinks, and he's offering the softest of smiles. This priest walks slowly to him. He walks, and he speaks.

"We found you out in the desert," he explains. The priest stands next to him now, smile not fading. "You were close to death. Pray tell, why were you out there?" His brows furrow.

"I do not know," he says honestly. His voice is deep. Something he didn't know about himself.

The priest mouths a small "ah" like he doesn't believe the man on the bed. Even more the priest examines him, studying his face, his clothing. All the while the man on the bed's heart beats faster, like he should be scared, but he doesn't remember why. A flash of fire and explosion engulfs him, and he cringes on impulse, protecting himself from the invisible sounds. 

"What is your name then?" The priest asks, breaking the illusions.

The man blinks absently and he's shaking. Why is he shaking? "I do not know," he answers finally.

There is silence. The priest does not push further but instead is studying the man again. His smile never fades and neither does his kindness. He says, "What _do_ you remember?"

The man is reluctant to admit he remembers nothing.

\---

Eventually the priest insists the man be called Marques. Marques isn't one to argue; after all he knows not whether the man is technically wrong. Iliud, as the priest said to be called, has been nothing but loving since Marques arrived. He treats Marques as if he were his own son, and does much to protect him. It's a quiet life, and at first nothing of ill repute happens. Marques tends to the dead, prays for their servitude in the afterlife, and goes to sleep. It's only about a month in that the nightmares start.

Marques finds himself waking from sleep, a scream caught in his throat that instead has come out as a gargled cry. He shivers and all he remembers is fire. All he can relate to is the sound of death. The sounds of destruction, and for some reason he feels responsible. He feels these occurrences of are his own ill will. When he voices this to Iliud, the priest tells him to pray. That all will be better through prayer.

So Marques prays. He kneels in the church for sometimes hours, unaware of those that pass him by. Sometimes while he utters out a prayer, he cries. Little dark dots fall to the wood floor, and he can't help but make more. Once there was almost a pond of them, and Marques took his robes to dab at them. Usually, though, the prayers do little to help. He still wakes in terror, still unsure why, and sometimes he smells fire. It's fire with a mix of something else. Something more sinister. Marques can't put his finger on it.

It's when a burial required cremation that Marques remembers. There are prayers said, tears shed, and one of the other members of the church throws a torch onto the body. Marques prepped the burial site; he had put the victim on a bed of flowers. He tries not to wonder what the person was like in life. What kind of smile they had or what sort of life they lived. He figures it's better if he never knew. Yet when the flames engulf the person in question, Marques remembers. He remembers the smell he keeps waking with, and it's the smell of burning flesh.

He breaks down, knees to ground and hands on either side of his skull. There's a guttural sob, something akin to a scream and a genuine cry, and it's unlike him. The attendees of the funeral say perhaps the reality got to him, but that's just it. Marques doesn't think this is reality. He thinks it's some personal hell just for him, one where he relives death and destruction and fear every night. One where he's punished for being alive.

He stops functioning after that. He finds himself staring at the dead and speaking nonsense, like those who have passed can hear him. Sometimes he catches himself crying, silent tears rolling down his cheeks, and still the nightmares haunt him. Every night he's screaming, writhing, trying to get away. Every time he sees a demon, sees a monster, and it looks at him. He swears it smirks at him before it obliterates everything. Everything, including Marques. 

Eventually he just stands. He stands in the graveyard, memorising the epitaphs. In an odd twist of reality the fact and inevitability of death soothes him. He stills cares for the dead, still prepares graves, but it takes him days. He's become a shell of a former man, one who can't even remember his own name.

\--

"He's completely catatonic, sir," a young priests tells Iliud. 

There's a sigh. "There's nothing more we can do."

Marques pretends he doesn't hear them.

\--

It's another day, another wasted existence that Marques finds himself standing in, sweat beads building underneath his hood. There's a grave stone sliding out of place and it has become his new favourite spot. He even goes to tilt his head to read it better, and the word "catatonic" doesn't enter his mind.

It's when there's a soft tap to his shoulder he slowly turns his head. He looks around, not knowing where the touch came from until a soft but stern clearing of a throat comes from below. Marques looks down and finds a young woman, a Hyur, with the reddest of hair and kindest of eyes. She stares up at him like he has all the answers, like he knows the meaning of life, and he's about to say otherwise when the woman comes first.

"You look sad," she says and her voice is milk. She indeed looks concerned and Marques can't bring himself to tell her he's long gone. He's just a carcass at this point.

She goes on to ask him about somewhere for a body and he only slightly listens. He mumbles something that the woman seems far too excited about, and she's already turned and skipping--and really? There are dead people everywhere--before she pauses. She turns back to Marques with a smile that could bring back even the eternally damned. It's reassuring and comforting and Marques wants to reach out and touch. It's only a moment, only a glimpse, and then she's gone. He thinks to follow, thinks to ask her so many questions, things that don't even make sense, because he wants her to know. Wants her to know why he's sad. Why he's like this.

\--

When the woman walks into the church again many weeks later, she regards Marques with the same smile. She comes to him so softly that Marques thinks he could crush her if he looks too hard. She comes to him and when she grabs his hand, when she squeezes tightly, he knows. He already knows.

"Cid," she breathes out onto him. He feels like he's just been born.

**Author's Note:**

> i just shat this out pls forgive its shittiness. 
> 
> title is taking from "Thousand Mile Wish" by Finger Eleven


End file.
